So, many things happened after I officially started my tiny new garden. As someone said, your garden is never the same – there's always something new every day. It's been more than a week since I planted the Water Hyacinth and lo and behold! Something exciting happened yesterday morning when I went back home from work.
In fact after a bit of reading about Water Hyacinths, I learned that they're a nuisance in most of the water receptacles. I learnt that they double themselves every fortnight and their hairy roots also serve as the breeding homes for mosquitoes (this got me really scared). In fact in many parts of India this beauty is completely covering the streams, backwaters, and other water receptacles, and is really difficult to eliminate them. Anyways I'm not worried about all that as I'm not introducing them in to streams (as if there're many in Chennai).
When planted in homes they serve as beautiful ornamental and low-maintenance plants. If you live near ponds or lakes don't ever introduce these into them, as they crowd together so much that they block the oxygen supply to the water hence killing the aquatic plants below. When I saw these beauties in the nursery they were crowded in the pot and I thought it was difficult to grow, but the woman said, 'Wait a month and see how crowded the pot gets!'
How to plant it?
1. Well, Fill a medium-sized pot with a quarter of soil and compost.
2. Fill the rest with water, an inch below the tip. Place the plant on the water.
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3. Don't worry if it slants onto a side, as it'd eventually spread itself and start growing.
4. In a matter of ten days, my plant with its five stems spread the entire pot and the surprise that I mentioned initially was Hyacinths – in just 10 days! They bloom in a bunch – the flower's a light shade of purple with a beautiful tiny yellow spot. It was a great sight. My neighbor was captivated by its sight and asked her daughter-in-law to pot one in their house too.
10 comments:
That's a gorgeous garden.
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Hi Chandramouli, I see you have started blogging about gardeneing.
I know both blogging and gardening is highly addictive.
I myself started gardening a year ago and im soo much into it.
I have opened a new site www.gardenersclub.in - Especially to help indian gardeners.
I dindt find many articles or help in ragards with gardening in india.
So I wanted to start something to help each other. This site is not for commercial purpose. im here to make no profits. I just want to bring the gardening community of india together sharing knowledge.
I have three sections of the website.
http://wiki.gardenersclub.in
and the forum and articles index page on http://www.gardenersclub.in.
I would be very happy if you could contribute your articles soo far on the homepage.
I can also arrange for your blog to be hosted with the domain.
say for xample http://candramouli.gardenersclub.in or anything else you want to.
I would install wordpress for you with complete admin access and you can blog there and artcles would be displayed through hompepage and on the blog.
Wordpress has an import feature and hence what ever you have blogged here can be imported through wordpress. i know you have only two entries but thats no probs.
Now im hunting for more gardeners.
http://indigarden.blogspot.com/ is one big gardener, her artcles are great and would love to have her contribute as well.
Im from bangalore. lovely place for gardening isnt it?
Hi Chandramouli, its always a pleasure to find Indian garden bloggers...to know someone who shares similar passion and enthusiasm feels great!! I can very well gauge your excitement on finding your hyacinth bloom bcoz that is how I always feel whenever any of my plant blooms for the first time. Keep it up dear, and never get demotivated by any stray plucking incidents.
Best Wishes and Happy Gardening!
Hi again Chandramouli! Thanks for your very nice words on my blog. It feels gr8 to be appreciated!
Well about your query, I would say that growth of a plant depends a lot on the soil type and the climatic conditions of the place. Balsam as such has a prolific growth once it establishes itself and I think it will give its first pair of true leaves within four- five days and if everything is fine it will give its first set of flower within a month or so. Do upload the photos when it flowers.
All the best.
It's a lovely plant and I'd love one for my balcony ... if it weren't for the mosquitoes.
Sue: Hi! Thanks for stopping by. Yea! I'm worried about that too [nervous]. Now it's grow like a small bush and I plan to change the water next week. In fact I thought of throwing it away, as I was afraid it'd breed mosquitoes in rainy season, but the very next day it came up with its second set of blooms and I thought, 'Well, let me take precautions from mosquito!
Hello Chandramouli,
How are you doing. Things are well here. Went through your blog and it is very nice :). You have a very nice collection of plants.
were you able to get panchagavya by any chance?..
Happy gardening!.
gg
Hi geekgardener! I'm doing great like my plants :) Thank you for the nice comments.
Didn't have time to get the pachakavya, but after all these festivals, I plan to buy it. Thank you for the number, by the ways.
this is national flower of sindh-pakistan and found wild in india and pakistan in mud lakes and water ponds. i am growing it in a clay pot but no blooms yet. may be monsoon rains trigger the blooms.
i didnt know hyacinths had such lovely flowers!
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